Today's Flowers: June flowers

I think rudbeckia (black-eyed susan) is cheerful looking flower.

Queen Anne's Lace lives up to its name.

I like the way each individual blossom is different as if to show different kinds of lace.

Click for the home of Today's Flowers.

Photohunters: Clean and Graveyard

Graveyard

Clean 

At first I was stumped by how to combine the two photohunt themes: clean and graveyard.

Then I thought about how the graveyard where my parents' remains are buried is rather neat and clean. I do like to try and figure out away to combine both themes because it's a challenge but perhaps this time it's a stretch.

 Click here for Sandy's clean photohunt and/or click here for Gattina's graveyard photohunt.

Nature Notes: Beginning of June

The female rufous-sided towhees have started coming on my deck for a bath.

The males have been visiting a lot more so I was glad to catch shots of the females for a change. For comparison you can click here to see a March nature notes I did with male towhee in the first two shots, if you like. The main difference is the males have black heads and top part of body where females have brown heads and top part of body. The male and female eyes differ too.

It is nice how green everything is which I thank plenty of rain for.

The fairy asters usually bloom at the end of the summer and early fall but like everything they are months early this year. 

I think the pair of ducks look like they are having a conversation.

The canada goose below looks like it's kissing a star.

The mallard teenager was hanging with the Canadian Geese.

I had to keep my distance and zoom in on the great blue heron because it was at a protected area of the creek that feeds into the lake. They tend to be in that area during breeding season and are very skittish if you get too near them in the spring and early summer.

The mimosa trees are beginning to bloom.

My black-eyed susan (rudbeckia) is gracing me with its lovely blooms.

I've been photographing it frequently because I enjoy the different stages of the blooms.

I used to plant annuals in my deck planters but now I let nature take its course and self seeders like rudbeckia come back and other volunteers grow in the planters.

If you look at the top of the shot above you may spot a frog (it's a metal frog).

The purple coneflower (echinacea) below is starting to form buds.

Click for the home of nature notes.

Today's Flowers: June begins

After a hard rain, I photographed the flowers around my house on the first day of June.

The hydrangeas are full of blooms.

The hydrangea above is the baby I transplanted many years ago which is an adult now. The hydrangea below is the parent bush.

The gardenia below grows on the border between me and my neighbor. It was a birthday gift to my neighbor from her husband many years ago.

My hydrangea parent still has many shades of colors on its blooms while its adult child is all blue now.

The rudbeckia (black-eyed susan) on my deck started blooming on the first day of June.

Most of the blooms are still in tight fists.

One of its blooms has opened wide.

Click for the home of Today's Flowers.

Photohunters: Taste and Bridges

Taste

Bridges

I have rather eclectic taste when it comes to bridges.

To combine the two photohunters themes this week, I'm going to show you some of the bridges that suit my taste.

I started with bridges I took in the Blowing Rock, NC mountain area (first 3 shots).

Sometimes the simplest foot bridges can be both useful and tasteful, even if the bridge is just stepping stones like the second one.

Shots 4, 5, and 6 are bridges on trails near my house in Raleigh, NC.

The bridge above and below make me think of a crooked little bridge instead of the crooked little house from nursery rhymes. 

The bridge below is barely visible which I kind of like. The next 3 shots were taken in the West Virginia mountains.

The next one is much larger and dominates the landscape immediately around it.

In contrast to the one above, the next bridge is stepping stones across the creek.

The red bridge below is on a trail near my house in NC.

The next three bridges are in the Virginia mountains near the NC border.

I am posting a lot of shots of bridges but they barely skim the surface of bridges that I've photographed which suit my tastes.

The bridge below is rather large but the way I shot it makes it look like it's nestled in the trees. My tastes run to reflections which is another reason I'm including the one below.

Unfortunately when I was in San Francisco I was in between cameras so the shots I took there were taken with a disposable camera.

Although the quality of the photos is lousy, since the Golden Gate Bridge recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, I'm including shots I took of it.

Click for the home of Gattina's bridges photohunt and/or click for Sandy's taste photohunt.